Corrine Sparks was the first Black Canadian woman to become a judge in Canada, and the first black judge in the province of Nova Scotia.
14 Facts About Corrine Sparks
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Corrine Sparks was descended both from Black Loyalists and from Black Refugees to Nova Scotia.
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In 1971 Corrine Sparks matriculated at Mount Saint Vincent University, where she majored in economics with the intention of being a history teacher.
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The practice that Corrine Sparks ran with Helen Foote was the first all-female law firm in Nova Scotia.
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In 2001, Corrine Sparks returned to Dalhousie Law School to obtain an LL.
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On March 27,1987, Corrine Sparks was appointed to the family court of Halifax, which made her the first black woman appointed to the Bench, and the first black judge in Nova Scotia.
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In 1995, Corrine Sparks heard the case R v S, in which a 15-year old black teenager was accused of hitting a police officer with his bicycle while the officer was attempting to arrest another person.
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Corrine Sparks acquitted the defendant, and in her decision she explicitly appealed to the "prevalent attitude of the day" as social context relevant to the ruling.
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The appeal was initially successful, and Corrine Sparks's decision was overturned by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, but the case was taken up by the Supreme Court of Canada who in 1997 reversed the decision by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal and restored Corrine Sparks's original decision.
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The political scientist Shanti Fernando wrote that the appeal against Corrine Sparks assumed two things: first that to observe the existence of systemic racial bias in the legal system is to violate judicial impartiality, and second that judges are more sympathetic to defendants of the same ethnicity.
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In 1993, Corrine Sparks served on the Gender Equality Task Force of the Canadian Bar Association.
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Corrine Sparks has taught with the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, where she has conducted social context training.
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Corrine Sparks was a 2015 inductee of the Bertha Wilson Honour Society, which recognises alumni of the Schulich School of Law, in honour of Bertha Wilson, the first woman on the Ontario Court of Appeal and the first female Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.
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Corrine Sparks has received the Lillian Fish Award from the National Association of the Women and the Law, as well as awards from the Elizabeth Fry Society, the Canadian Bar Association, and The Congress of Black Women.